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Spamming Rises on Valentine’s Day But Purchase Rate Drops

For some, Valentine's Day may mean a lot of business for greeting card manufacturers. But lately it also means a moneymaking opportunity for spammers.

Security experts are alerting e-mailers about scams, which send Valentine's Day messages only to convince them to part with their money, albeit unwittingly. In the long run these scams perpetuate spam mails.

Sophos reports, there is a rise in the volume of spam encouraging sale of romantic gifts like jewelry, lingerie and chocolates. However, only 5% of online users this year have admitted to buy items sold via spam, down from 9% last year, according to a new poll. The results clearly show spammers are no longer the greatest winners in selling goods, whether they are Valentine's Day gifts or the latest medication claiming weight loss in ten days, said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos in a company press release.

The simplest conclusion is that if no one purchased goods via junk e-mail, spammers would halt their activities. It is heartening to note a decline in such purchases but with a vast number of e-mail users globally, 5% is still enough to encourage spamming business, commented Cluley.

The firm also found that the volume of image spam rose by more than 100% in 2006. It says marketers' most favorite occasions for sending out spam are Valentine's Day and Christmas. spammers now attack with images to get around text-based anti-spam products.

The image spam mostly promotes "pump and dump" stocks and medication because they are elusive to anti-spam filters that recognize only textual content.

Image spam of this type has been the core of spam trends in 2007. Not only do they hold greater chances of reaching users' mailboxes, but are very effective for marketing visually sensitizing items. It is very effective to induce people into making an order, Cluley continued. Whether the spam mails have images, web links or any other trick to bypass filters, unsolicited e-mails are a constant problem to consumers and companies worldwide. Therefore to vanquish these perpetrators people need to put their foot down and stop making any response to spam, Cluley advised.

Related article: Spamming Keeps Taking On New Forms

» SPAMfighter News - 2/27/2007

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